Wow, I must say your family is very brave if they ask for tech advice from someone who is suggesting iPhone because he is afraid that malware on Android will make his tech-advising task more difficult.
To be clear - I have tech-supported hundreds if not thousands of people over the last 10 years, I have never seen any piece of malware on any Android device. It is almost impossible to download malware on any Android device that runs Google Play and it has been the case for many years.
I use very few native apps. Specifically, Mail and Photos and that's it. I use Chrome, Google Maps, Waze,Google Keep, Google Kalendar, Google Tasks, Google Home,Spotify...I change devices often, I use many different platforms, I can't imagine being locked in one single ecosystem with all my apps and services.